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Paralympic squad departs for World Cup in Brazil

The Australian Paralympic Football team leaves today in their bid to qualify for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. The team will play in the 2007 Cerebral Palsy World Cup, being held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

The Australian Paralympic Football team leaves today in their bid to qualify for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. The team will play in the 2007 Cerebral Palsy World Cup, being held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

The 12 players and 4 officials left Australia, after officially being presented with team jerseys at a farewell function held in their honour at the Marriott Hotel in Sydney. National Olympic team coach Graham Arnold, FFA Technical Director Rob Baan, Matildas goalkeeper Lydia Williams and former Socceroos captain Alex Tobin presented the players with their strips.

The team needs to finish in the top seven to automatically qualify for the Paralympics and after finishing second to Iran at the FESPIC Games earlier this year, the team is confident they can achieve their goal.

Australia has a challenging group, facing South Africa first up on November 6 and then England/Wales on November 8 and finally host nation Brazil on November 10 (all dates are to AEDST, Brazil is some 14 ).

From there, the team must finish in the top two, which will see it make the quarter finals (last eight) and a terrific chance of making the Paralympics. A win in the quarter finals will guarantee them a place at the Paralympics, however a loss will see them go into a play-off pool with the other losers, where that is eventually whittled down to determine 7th and 8th place in the tournament.

Coach Paul Brown has now in charge of the Paralympic team for the past two years and is excited by what this team can accomplish in Brazil.

“We are in a very tough pool,” said Brown at the farewell function. “We-ve got South Africa, Brazil, who are the world champions, England/Wales, but my expectations are very high.

“The players have worked very, very hard to get where they are at present and did very well over at the Fespic Games or Asian Games last year, winning the silver medal. So I have high expectations of what they can accomplish over there.”

However the main goal is to qualify for the Paralympics in 2008 and Brown says it will be a challenge, but one that this group is ready for.

“We have to be in the top seven to make the Beijing (Paralympics) 2008. Australia has never qualified for the Paralympics before (excluding Sydney, where they qualified as host), so it-s going to be a great challenge.

“Spirit-s are very high; they-ve worked very hard and they are a great bunch of elite athletes.

“The players now know that they can be successful and obviously success from the Fespic Games is still carrying over. Since the Fespic Games I have lifted the bar from a coaching point of view and the players have risen with it.”